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International Phenomenological Society

Movements in Philosophy: Phenomenology and its Parallels


Author(s): Herbert Spiegelberg
Source: Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 43, No. 3 (Mar., 1983), pp. 281-297
Published by: International Phenomenological Society
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Philosophy and Phenomenological Research
Vol. XLIII, No. 3, March i983

Movements in Philosophy:
Phenomenology and Its Parallels
HERBERT SPIEGELBERG
Washington University

I. The Occasion and Its Significance


This topic became significant to me when critics of my historical intro-
duction to the Phenomenological Movement took me to task on the one
hand for interpreting a mere common "tendency" among philosophers
as a movement (Marvin Farber, who himself had used the expression
"movement" before)' and on the other hand for being too squeamish
about the phrase "philosophical school" (Eric Weil),' which I had
avoided. My first reaction to these objections was that this was a mere
matter of definition. On second thought I have come to the conclusion
that there is really more to these criticisms than a semantic quarrel. In
fact I make bold to assert that there are no matters of mere definition.
Behind definitional decisions stand the definienda or rather the phe-
nomena to which they refer. These have their own structure and their
articulation which decide whether or not a definition adequately fits the
phenomena or cuts through their living flesh with a meat axe instead of
a scalpel. A parallel would be defining colors in a spectrum by equal dis-
tances from its end, which would break up the phenomenal colors as
they seem to "belong"-together. It may be true that in common usage
the concepts of school and movement largely overlap and can be
stretched and shrunk by definition. Nevertheless, I maintain that there

I "The Phenomenological Tendency," Journal of Philosophy 59 (i96z), pp. 4z9-39 and


my reply, ibid., pp. 583-88. Compare, e.g., Philosophy and Phenomenological
Research VI (1945), pp. I-Ia, especially p. 8. See also Karl Schuhmann, "Markers on
the Road to the Conception of the Phenomenological Movement," this issue, under
"1 939-I945," and Kah Kyung Cho, "Marvin Farber (i9oi-i980)" in
Phdnomenologische Forschunger I1 (I98z), p. i69, according to whom Farber con-
tinued using the expression until i959.
' La Critique, 185, pp. 906-9.

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are cases that clearly do or do not belong into all of these classes of phe-
nomena.
My plan for demonstrating this thesis will consist in first presenting
the critical case of the Phenomenological Movement (II). I shall then
compare it with those of three other philosophical movements in an
attempt to find out how far they agree or differ in structure, focussing
on the positivist and pragmatist movements after mentioning briefly the
first such American movement that went by this classification, the St.
Louis Movement (III). This comparison should yield some general
insights about movements in philosophy. I shall also take a brief look at
intellectual and social movements outside philosophy and science,
where the analogical use of the term "movement" has originated, with a
view to understanding their general structure (IV). On this extended
basis I shall try to discuss the relation of philosophical movements to
schools, circles, and other organizations (V).
What I am proposing could easily proliferate and degenerate into a
merely sociological enterprise, albeit one in the phenomenological soci-
ology of philosophical movements. While there is a definite need for
such a study, my own main objective remains philosophical. Ultimately
what I would like to determine is whether movements in philosophy are
a healthy development - what they have added to, and detracted from,
philosophy. I shall try to answer this question in the concluding section
(VI).

II. The Phenomenological Movement as a Phenomenon


When in I952 I was persuaded to attempt a historical introduction to
Phenomenology, I conceived of my task immediately as that of writing
an account of a philosophical movement. I never considered calling it a
study of the phenomenological School. In retrospect I now wonder why
I was so sure that "The Phenomenological Movement" was the appro-
priate title for my enterprise. True, there was the stimulus of the general
need of an account of the phenomenological current (courant
phe'nome'nologique)voiced already in I949 by the founder of the Hus-
serl Archives and the Husserliana edition, H. L. Van Breda (Husserliana
I, p. xi). But I also felt that the phenomenon I wanted to describe was
quite different from what at the time I understood by a school. Since
then I have come to realize that the question of the proper label for phe-
nomenology as a historical phenomenon is far from simple. It requires
at least the exploration of the rise of the consciousness of phenomenol-
ogy among a distinctive philosophical group of participants. A first step
in this direction would be the study of the way in which they themselves
referred to their joint cause. The one authentic source for such an

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exploration would be the live language used by the early members of
the group, at least by historical interviews. But after nearly eighty years
this chance is gone. It is all the more important to collect the written
sources. After I had tried to track down some of the evidence in my
book, my friend and collaborator, Karl Schuhmann, put together a
much more representative collection, which I am adding in an Appen-
dix.
Briefly, the picture as it now emerges shows that after the arrival
from Munich of several emancipated students of Theodor Lipps such as
Johannes Daubert, Adolf Reinach, Moritz Geiger, Theodor Conrad and
Hedwig (Conrad-)Martius, with their traditional Munich style of
informal philosophizing in homes and cafes outside the university, the
atmosphere among Husserl's students became much more gregarious.
The social structure of Husserl's followership began to change into
what was often called a circle (Gottinger Kreis). Joined by other gifted
students from other places such as Wilhelm Schapp from Berlin and
Jean Hering from Strassburg, they organized in i909 into a Philoso-
phische Gesellschaft modelled to some extent after the Akademische
Verein fur Psychologie that had existed in Munich already during the
nineties. The members of this circle met regularly in a local hotel
(Frankfurter Hot) and later at the estate of a hospitable landowner
(Herr von Heister) for special programs and discussions (personal
information from Jean Hering). It was also within this group that the
wish and pressure for a special organ of publication began to take
shape. Its first expression was the Miinchener Philosophische Abband-
lungen presented to Theodor Lipps on his sixtieth birthday in i9ii,
edited in Munich by Alexander PfKnder,as a kind of peace offering to
their former teacher, who was smarting under the defection of some of
his top students to Husserl. By the year i i z the Gbttingen and Munich
circles were ready to start a yearbook for a wider public, the Jahrbuch
fur Philosophie und phdnomenologische Forschung. The prospectus
that preceded it and was reprinted at the head of the first volume pub-
lished in I9I3 made a special point of stating that the founders were not
united by a special "school system" (Schulsystem) but only by certain
minimum methodical principles. The implied rejection of the idea of a
school hinted at least indirectly at the unity of a common movement. In
fact, it was at this point that the expression "phbnomenologische Bew-
egung" can first be documented in print, for instance in Hedwig Con-
rad-Martius' doctoral dissertation of I9I3.
Husserl never stated explicitly what in his eyes distinguished a
movement from a school, although in i929, in a draft for a prospectus

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for the Jahrbuch he had crossed out the expression Schule and replaced
it by phdnomenologischer Forscherkreis (circle of researchers). Assum-
ing then that the term Bewegung had a distinctive meaning for many, if
not for all, of the leading phenomenologists, especially for Husserl,
what are the phenomena to which it refers? In answering this question I
shall first present a more concrete picture of the structure of this partic-
ular movement and try to do this phenomenologically by showing ways
in which it had entered the consciousness of the participants. I have
struggled with this problem in the Introduction of my book. Here I
would like to point out merely that a phenomenon such as the Phenom-
enological Movement is essentially vague in the sense that it has no pre-
cise boundaries. In this sense it has what Husserl called a morphological
essence comparable to concepts used in biology, like oval or lance-
shaped, in contrast to concepts used in the exact sciences, like even or
uneven. This case calls for a peculiar kind of definition that is neither
descriptive nor merely stipulative. It fixes the boundaries by stipulation
around a given core of meaning. Irving Copi in his Introduction to
Logic gave to this mixed type of definition the felicitous name of
"precising definition." In this manner I "precise" the range of the Phe-
nomenological Movement on the basis of a survey of the field with its
affinities and repugnancies, using the following minimum criteria:
I. Members of the Phenomenological Movement base all claims
to knowledge on intuitive experience (Anschauung).
z. They explore essences (types) and essential characteristics on
the basis of such intuitive experience (Wesenseinsicht).
3. They identify with each other as sharing these principles at
least implicitly.
But now to the actual phenomenology of the phenomenon so
defined: Clearly its basic question would be: What is the Phenomeno-
logical Movement seen phenomenologically? What is its essence? More
concretely, its investigation as I envisage it would involve several opera-
tions:
I. an intuitive grasp of the scope of the Movement, its analysis
and description, while suspending all claims that such a
movement was ever a full historical reality (epoche);
z. the determination of its essence, its essential characteristics
and relationships (essential phenomenology);

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3. the study of its ways of appearance in consciousness (phe-
nomenology of appearances);
4. the study of the constitution of the phenomenon in con-
sciousness (constitutive phenomenology);
5. the hermeneutic interpretation of its meaning (hermeneutic
phenomenology).
I shall attempt to illustrate each stage briefly, dwelling on some that
are particularly illuminating.
i. For a descriptive phenomenology of the Movement, the first task
would be to secure a wide survey of the phases of the Movement on the
basis of concrete historical knowledge. On this level one of the most
conspicuous features of the Movement was its explosive evolution.
Time was when the Movement consisted merely of two open circles of
advanced students and teachers at Gbttingen and Munich in face-to-
face contact, aware of one another personally, with a feeling of solidar-
ity, though not always in agreement with one another. This type of
intimacy weakened after World War I, as the Movement proliferated
and became more and more impersonal. At this stage names and titles
of books replaced personal knowledge of the members of the Move-
ment and their work, a fact that went hand-in-hand with growing mis-
understandings and rifts inside the Movement. This impersonalization
was bound to increase with the internationalization of Phenomenology,
especially after World War II. The larger the Movement, the vaguer
became the awareness and knowledge of other co-phenomenologists.
By now it is practically and almost essentially impossible to encompass
the Movement as a whole. It exists-merely in the perspectives of its con-
scious members, which are by no means always congruent and at times
highly incongruent. This perspectivity of the present phenomenon of
Phenomenology has serious consequences for any historiographer of
the Movement. Well-coordinated teamwork and bibliographical
devices can mitigate the problem, but they can never replace direct intu-
itive acquaintance. In fact, a complete phenomenological history of
Phenomenology has now become a human impossibility. The choice is
between a selective one-author history from one unifying but limited
angle and a composite picture based on a division of labor among sev-
eral collaborators, whose coordination is always problematic. My own
solution in the revised third edition of my book, a compromise whereby
experts were invited to contribute in those areas which I felt I could no
longer handle adequately, is in a sense an experiment. As to the pros-
pects of the effort I myself am highly skeptical. In this spirit I can only

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welcome a plurality of histories of the Movement, correcting and bal-
ancing each other, provided they pay careful attention to the evidence
of the texts and established biographical facts. Such parallel histories
may even have the additional merit of independent experiments in his-
toriography. What is needed is critical tolerance without relativistic
despair.
z. The next task, i.e., determining the essence and the essential char-
acteristics of the Movement, would imply the imaginative variation and
comparative investigation of the phenomena with a view to identifying
features that cannot be omitted without breaking up the unity or Ges-
talt of the phenomenon. This is the procedure that led me to look for
the essentials of Phenomenology in its method. Other essentials of the
Phenomenological Movement may be found in its characteristic ten-
dency to move from subjectivity toward intersubjectivity expressed in
its quest for dialogue as a means of intersubjective verification.
3. In what ways does the Phenomenological Movement appear to us?
This is a particularly important and elusive question. It is by no means
easy to point to any characteristic manifestation of the Movement as it
is in the case of spatial objects, which appear from different viewpoints
through their different aspects. Nevertheless, even the Phenomenologi-
cal Movement appears differently from different perspectives, for
instance to the insider and to the outsider. It may appear most fully and
adequately on such occasions as a meeting of concerned Phenomenolo-
gists, in informal exchanges, and in joint publications. At other times it
is given merely through verbal references empty of intuitive content,
perhaps without any referent behind them.
4. The way the Movement establishes itself in our historical con-
sciousness raises the further question: How do such appearances take
shape in us? For they certainly make a distinctive entrance in our con-
sciousness. Now there are two major ways in which such constitution
can take place. The phenomenon either constitutes itself automatically,
as it were, without the observer's doing, making it in a sense a passive
constitution. Or the phenomenon requires deliberate activity on the
part of the subject in order to take shape, amounting in this sense to an
active constitution. Historical movements present themselves
"passively" when the participants are held together by their own organ-
ization, for instance by forming a "united front." But where this link is
missing, as in art history, where certain movements owe their birth to
the grouping and labeling of historians, the movement is constituted by
the classifying outsider. The case of the Phenomenological Movement is
complex. As stated above, the phrase cannot yet be documented in writ-

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ing before I9I3 in Hedwig Conrad-Martius' curriculum vitae. As to the
referent of the term, the Movement itself, the early Munich and
Gdttingen circles showed a spontaneous clustering that has all the ear-
marks of a movement without any contributing active constitution by
historians. The matter may be different at later stages when Phenome-
nology spread beyond Germany. There was little social coherence
among those who had undergone the mostly literary influence of the
German originators. Thus the French Phenomenological Movement
was to a large extent the result of a collecting effort by outside observers
for whom a Gabriel Marcel and a Sartre showed a similarity of
approach calling for a joint label.3
5. Finally I see an opportunity and a need for a hermeneutic interpre-
tation of the meaning of the Phenomenological Movement, especially in
the context of the history of philosophy and the cultural movements of
our time. Even Husserl seems to have anticipated this when he con-
ceived of his phenomenology first as the way to make philosophy a rig-
orous science and finally as the saving message for overcoming the crisis
of European civilization.
What could be the meaning of the entire Phenomenological Move-
ment beyond its immediate goals? A responsible answer to such a ques-
tion would clearly require considerable preparation, especially by way
of a hermeneutic interpretation of our present civilization. An answer
would depend largely on the general perspective of the interpreter. It
would depend equally on his interpretation of the development of the
Movement. Nevertheless, I shall have the temerity to suggest two possi-
ble meanings without trying to justify them. As a clue for these interpre-
tations I shall try to answer the question: What difference has the entry
of Phenomenology made in the history of modern philosophy? One
minimum answer is that it has led to the rehabilitation of some previ-
ously ignored phenomena, notably the subjective phenomena that had
been discredited by a behavioristic scientific positivism. In addition to
this restorative function, it has opened up new phenomena for philo-
sophical exploration, notably those of intentionality and temporality.
Moreover, I would like to suggest a larger meaning of the Phenomeno-

I There is an intriguing reference to phenomenology as a movement in the Avant-propos


of Merleau-Ponty's Phbnomenologie de la perception, where he states that ". . . (la
phenomenologie) existe comme mouvement avant d'etre parvenue a une entire con-
science philosophique." But the context makes it clear that he is referring here not to
the existence of the Movement as a philosophical current prior to Husserl but to the
fact that phenomenology exists in each one of us as a "manner or a style of thinking"
before it is formulated in an explicit philosophy; see also his essay "Le Metaphysique
dans l'homme" in Sens et Non-sens.

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logical Movement beyond mere rehabilitation and enrichment. Phe-
nomenology was not the only philosophical movement in the later nine-
teenth century that tried to widen the narrow perspective of a sense-
data positivism. There has been a general trend toward broadening the
conception of experience, of which Peirce's "phaneroscopy," William
James' radical empiricism, John Dewey's experimentalism, Bergson's
intuitionism, and Whitehead's philosophy of arganism are outstanding
examples, independent of Husserl's phenomenology. Seen against the
background of this groundswell of a broader empiricism, the Phenome-
nological Movement can be interpreted as a superimposed wave system
defending even bolder intuitions of general a priori essences previously
sanctioned only by rationalism. I submit that such an interpretation of
the Phenomenological Movement makes it possible to see in it not only
a renewal of philosophy by a return to old and a discovery of new
sources but also a synthesis of the most viable parts of the historic tradi-
tion by a radicalization of its initiatives.
Reflecting on this sketch of a new task for Phenomenology I hope to
have demonstrated that the field for an expansion of phenomenology is
still wide open, in fact that it is without frontiers. It may have universal
application, as Sartre realized when his erstwhile friend Raymond
Aron, returning from Germany in I93z, told him that phenomenology
could enable him to philosophize about a particular glass of apricot
cocktail in front of him. But there are more important themes to apply it
to, like the Phenomenological Movement itself.
Summing up the results of this sketch for answering the question "In
what sense can the Phenomenological Movement be considered a
Movement?" one might put it as follows:
The Phenomenological Movement started as a spontaneous gather-
ing of young philosophers in two separate locations, first in Munich
and afterwards in Gdttingen, interested in, but not led by Edmund
Husserl, whose early Logical Investigations served as the main point
of departure. As it spread, it developed a minimum platform of
methodological principles at the head of its main literary enterprise, a
new yearbook. Since then it has proliferated over most of the globe,
losing coherence in the process, but never consolidating into a rigid
school with a stable organization and a leading figure comparable to
the role of Husserl in its early days.

III. Other Philosophical Movements


The Phenomenological Movement is not the only nor the first among
the movements figuring in the history of philosophy. Their listing and

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exploration would presuppose a study of the introduction of this con-
cept as a historiographical category. On the basis of first research of the
sources carried out chiefly by Karl Schuhmann it is my definite impres-
sion that the term "movement" is not applied to philosophical devel-
opments prior to the nineteenth century. Thus far the historiographer
most influential in spreading the extension of this term from physics to
social and philosophical phenomena was Victor Cousin in several of his
works, particularly in his lectures on Introduction a l'histoire de la phi-
losophie (I8z8, published in I840) where, for instance, he speaks of the
philosophical movements issuing from Socrates, from Descartes, and
particularly from Kant, but also of his own "eclectic" movement as the
wave of the future. A certain precedent can be found in Charles Fouri-
er's theory of the four movements (material, organic, animal, and
social) in his Theorie des quatre mouvements et des destinies generates
(I808).
However, more important for the present attempt to characterize the
Phenomenological Movement is to contrast it with some of the more
outspoken movements in recent philosophical history which conceived
of themselves as movements rather than as schools.
I shall disregard what is easily the most powerful current in western
philosophy, especially in the Anglo-American world: analytic philoso-
phy. But how far does it consider itself a movement? My impression is
that its main representatives think of their philosophy as something
much more definitive than a movement. Also, there is little social coher-
ence between its various branches which could set it apart from other
philosophical groups.

1. The St. Louis Movement


I shall begin with the first philosophical group which seems to have
referred to itself as a movement. They were a small cluster of mostly
nonprofessional enthusiasts of philosophy, meeting regularly in the
Mercantile Library of St. Louis led by W. T. Harris, a Yankee school-
man, and the Germanic missionary for Hegel's logic, H. C. Brokmeyer.
That the name St. Louis Movement was used from the start by the
society itself is attested by one of its earliest members and its first histo-
rian, Denton J. Snider, in i9zo:
Fifty years and more have passed since the phrase "The St. Louis PhilosophicalMove-
ment"beganto be heardin certainlimitedcirclesoverthe country,and occasionallyto be
used in briefprintedreportsof the PublicPress.To most peopleit meantonly something
startedin St. Louisfor the fleetingmoment . . . a little bubbleof the time soon to burst
into lasting oblivion. Undoubtedly,those who initiatedit had a vague feelingthat they

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were doing a marginal deed of permanent and ever-growing significance; but that was
what the future alone would prove.

Moreover, Snider assigned a definite birthday for the Movement, i.e.,


January i866.
I was on hand at the primal genetic incident or historic occurrence, when, [that]
very minute, even if gravid with long life, which can be set down as the first beginning or
actual efflorescence of the St. Louis Movement. . . The foregoing event, which may be
regarded as the starting-point of the St. Louis Movement, was the birth of the St. Louis
Philosophical Society which took place in January i866 after due preliminaries.5

The "Constitution" of the originating Society stated merely that "the


purpose of this Society is to encourage the study and development of
Speculative Philosophy, to foster application of its results to art, science
and religion and to establish a philosophical basis for the professions of
Law, Medicine, Divinity, Politics, Education, Art and Literature." It did
not mention the magic name of Hegel as its most distinctive feature. Its
most important expression was the first American philosophical jour-
nal, the Journal for Speculative Philosophy, which survived the active
Movement for several decades. My impression is that the Movement
stopped "moving" soon after its beginnings. The hope for a valid trans-
lation of Hegel's Logic never materialized, nor did the political hope
that St. Louis would emerge as the synthesis of the libertarian thesis of
the South and the egalitarian antithesis of the North. The final scatter-
ing of the Movement certainly did not mean its spreading.

2. Pragmatism
Pragmatism was clearly the most characteristic, if not the strongest,
philosophical movement in the United States that called itself deliber-
ately a movement, not a circle or a school. To be sure, C. S. Peirce, who
first coined the name, after emerging from the Cambridge Metaphysical
Club with its evolutionist roots, never talked about pragmatism as a
movement. He even turned away from it by "kissing his brainchild
goodbye" and setting his own philosophy apart under the deliberately
repulsive name of "pragmaticism." It was William James who took
over the banner. It is also in his writings that one can find the explicit
characterization of it as a "movement."6 But eventually even James
preferred a fresh label for his own philosophy by the name of "radical

4 The St. Louis Movement in Philosophy, Literature, Education (St. Louis: Sigma Pub-
lishingCompany,i9z0), p. 5.
5 Ibid., pp. 5-6.
6 p. 47.
Pragmatism (I907),

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empiricism," since pragmatism had been too often misunderstood
under that name. John Dewey, the third major pragmatist, apparently
never liked the label and preferred his own coinages such as
instrumentalistm." Nevertheless they all felt in substantial agreement
about their methodological principles and in their aversion to anything
like a final system.
Under these circumstances it is not surprising that there has never
been anything like a pragmatist platform, nor any kind of pragmatist
society or club and no special journal. Least of all did pragmatism ever
claim to be a "school." Charles Morris put it retrospectively in the fol-
lowing terms:
If American pragmatism is not a "system" in the historical sense it is more systematic than
is generally recognized. It stands revealed as a cooperative movement almost unique in the
history of philosophic thought. Its members are not a group of disciples centering on and
reflecting a master, but a group of interacting creative thinkers developing various facets
of a common philosophic enterprise.7

More recently, H. S. Thayer stated it thusly:


Viewed against idealism and intellectual movements, [pragmatism] stands out as the
movement that not only had an impact upon academic philosophy but profoundly
influenced students of the law, education, politics and social theory, religion and the arts.
It is as a movement . . . that pragmatism is best understood. It is in this respect, rather
than by any exclusive doctrine, that pragmatism became the major contribution of Amer-
ica to world philosophy.8

3. Logical Positivism
How far can neo-positivism, and particularly the logical posivitism (in
contrast to the original positivismr of Auguste Comte), of the Vienna
Circle and the so-called "Berlin School" of Hans Reichenbach be con-
sidered a philosophical movement? My impression is that "movement"
is the preferred expression used by insiders, whereas on the outside it is
more often called a "school." A good indication of the insider's per-
spective is the concise "History of the Logical Positivist Movement" at
the head of A. J. Ayer's anthology Logical Positivism, which deals pri-
marily with the Vienna Circle. Here Ayer states immediately: "At the
beginning it was more of a club than a movement." Later, in speaking
of the international congresses in Prague, Kdnigsberg, Copenhagen,
Paris, and Cambridge, he refers to the ambition of the Vienna Circle to

7 The Pragmatic Movement in American Philosophy (New York: George Braziller,


I970), p. I4I.
8 Meaning and Action: A Critical History of Pragmatism (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill,
I973), p. 3.

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develop Logical Positivism as an international movement, whose
"missionary spirit" found a first outlet in I930 when the Vienna Circle
took over the Annalen der Philosophie and gave it the new name Erk-
enntnis. But he also points out that "though the logical positivist
movement gathered strength throughout the thirties, the Vienna Circle
itself was in the process of dissolution." Also, in describing the fortunes
of the members of the new movement during the Nazi years he con-
cludes: "However much influence these philosophers may exert indi-
vidually, they do not constitute a school. In this sense the logical positi-
vist movement has been broken up." Ayer's final verdict is that the
Kantian goal "to set philosophy upon the sure path of a science" has
not been attained: it may indeed be unattainable. "All the same, there
can be progress in philosophy, and in one way and another the positi-
vist movement is still achieving it." In any case, this account indicates a
clear distinction between circle, movement, and school (except for the
so-called "Berlin School").9
There is no explicit manifesto of Logical Positivism. The closest to it
was the statement by Otto Neurath, Hans Hahn, and Rudolf Carnap
dedicated to Moritz Schlick in i929, which no longer seems to be well
known and accessible. Apparently it was never translated into English.
Under the title Wissenschaftliche Weltauffassung (Scientific World
View) it formulated the common tenets of the Vienna Circle informally
without special enumeration in sentences like the following:
"This circle has no stable organization; it consists of people of the
same scientific fundamental attitude . . ." After a brief story of its
antecedents, "scientific world view" is characterized less by theses of its
own than by "fundamental (grundsjtzliche) attitudes, viewpoints and
directions of research." The subsequent account stresses the goal of a
unitary science, collective work, the denial of unsolvable riddles
(Scheinprobleme), the overcoming of all types of metaphysics, including
Kantian and modern apriorism, all forms of realism and idealism:
Something is "real" (wirklich) by being incorporated (eingeordnet) into
the total structure of experience. Intuition is admitted only insofar as it
can be justified rationally. Scientific comprehension is empiricist and
positivistic, i.e., it is based on what is immediately given, and on logical
analysis, i.e., by reduction (Zurfickftihrung) of all statements to what is
immediately given to a "constitutional system" by means of symbolic
logic or logistics leading to the structure but not to the "essence" of
things.'0

9 Logical Positivism (Glencoe: Free Press, I950), pp. 3-I0.


I Wissenschaftliche Weltanschauung. Der Wiener Kreis (Wien: Arthur Wolf Verlag,

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Many of these statements could easily have been condensed into a
manifesto or a platform, at least for the Vienna Circle. But historically
they have not played this role, especially for the movement when it had
spread beyond Vienna.
A comparison of the Phenomenological Movement, the St. Louis
movement, pragmatism, and logical positivism as philosophical move-
ments shows clearly that they have a good many common features. All
are formed by thinkers sharing a certain number of principles, mostly of
a methodological nature, grew out of small face-to-face groups or cir-
cles moving usually beyond their original locations (with the exception
of the St. Louis Movement, which never spread beyond St. Louis), were
inspired by some common ideas but had not yet arrived at sufficiently
definite results to yield a complete philosophy or "system": they all had
unfinished business. But there are also substantial differences. Not all
movements started out from the thought of a personal initiator, author-
ity, or book like Husserl's Logical Investigations for phenomenology.
For the St. Louis Movement, under the double leadership of W. T. Har-
ris and H. C. Brokmeyer, it was Hegel's star that guided them. In prag-
matism at least three fairly independent thinkers, Peirce, James, and
Dewey, set the tone. In Logical Positivism the core was less a personal
leader than an inner ring within the Vienna Circle, represented by the
authors of Wissenschaftliche Weltanschauung and Moritz Schlick, to
whom this pamphlet was dedicated.

IV. A Glance at Non-philosophical Movements


Before considering the question of the general nature of philosophical
movements on the basis of the preceding examples I want to take a brief
look at some nonphilosophical movements. For these not only preceded
the philosophical movements in time but have attracted scholarly inter-
est much earlier." Important examples would be the Renaissance, the
Reformation and Counter-reformation, and the Enlightenment. But
these seem to have been named only retrospectively by nineteenth cen-
tury historians, not by their protagonists. Apparently the first example
of a group which called itself a movement was the liberal "parti du
mouvement" during the July revolution of i830. Since then such
movements as the Labor Movement, the Abolitionist Movement, the
Peace Movement, the Youth Movement, and the Feminist Movement
thought and talked of themselves as movements. Even more ominous

I Thus even the Historisches Wbrterbuch der Philosophie edited by Joachim Ritter con-
tains only a (highly informative) study on "Bewegung, politische" by J. Frese. It fails to
mention philosophical movements.

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examples were the Fascist and the Nazi Movements (the latter origina-
ting from a city later labelled as "the Capital of the Movement"). While
this social phenomenon is clearly the domain for historians and sociol-
ogists, it may suffice here to point out that such movements are guided
mostly by their negative reactions against existing conditions, similar to
and sometimes resulting in revolutions. Often they have relatively little
conception of what they are moving toward and may therefore very eas-
ily end up in something very different from their start. Mussolini, initi-
ating Fascism as a socialist movement soon turned it into a nationalist
and reactionary enterprise with a totalitarian Statist philosophy. With-
out trying to rush into hasty generalizations based on insufficient sam-
pling, I submit that such nonphilosophical mass movements have a
much less rational and planned character and less sense of direction
especially in a constructive direction than intellectual movements.
This may be different in the case of artistic movements beginning
with the Renaissance, the Romantic movement, and the latest move-
ments in art beginning with Impressionism, which sometimes proclaim
special manifestoes, e.g., Surrealism.
Finally, even science has not been immune to "movements" at certain
points in its development. Thus evolutionism and particularly Darwi-
nism were not merely theories but scientific movements spreading even
into the social field (social Darwinism). A particularly instructive but
also complex case is that of the "Psychoanalytic Movement," so
labelled by the founder Sigmund Freud himself as early as i9ii in his
"History of the Psychoanalytic Movement." However, the concrete
development of this "movement" from its beginnings, when Freud
invited some of his interested colleagues every Wednesday to his apart-
ment, to its conferences, teaching institutes and finally splits would
require a detailed study of its own in which such terms as circle, Move-
ment, and school would acquire probably very special meanings
reflecting the unique development that characterized the growth and
dispersal of the phenomenon "psychoanalysis."
Regardless of such differences, philosophical and nonphilosophical
movements have a good deal in common such as the simple fact that
they all move from somewhere to somewhere. But the goals of the non-
philosophical movements are usually much vaguer than those of the
philosophical ones. Yet they are obviously much more widespread and
powerful phenomena than their philosophical equivalents.

V. Movements and Schools: What is a Philosophical Movement?


Returning to the philosophical movements I shall now reconsider the
question whether there is a substantial difference between movements,

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circles, and especially schools. Is the distinction merely a matter of con-
vention or arbitrary definition? Concentrating on the possible differ-
ence between movement and school, I consider it significant that phe-
nomenology, pragmatism and logical positivism mostly reject the label
'school'. Allowing for the ambiguity of the term "school," beginning
with its literal meaning of leisure as the condition of undisturbed study
to that of a school as an institution in which members, especially the
students, are little more than "material" (most outspoken among Ger-
man educationalists), I believe nevertheless that philosophical schools
display distinctive structures. Thus the Pythagoreans with their rites of
initiation for novices committed to absolute silence during the first year,
Plato's Academy with buildings entered through a porch with the
inscription "let no one enter who has no geometry," illustrate the insti-
tutional character of the original philosophical schools. Even more
important is the clear division between teachers and learners and the
existence of "heads of the school" (scholarchs) to lead them. Such fea-
tures are incompatible with what we found among the movements in
the specific senses here studied. Even without emphasizing buildings
and hierarchies I would maintain that schools like the Cartesian or the
Hegelian imply a definite body of doctrine which in principle is already
stabilized and no longer in motion.
I admit that the distinction between movement and school is fluid
and can be fixed only by "precising" definition. But there seems to me a
definite difference in the phenomena between a group of thinkers "on
the move" whose thoughts are still in a formative stage and others with
a ready-made set of teachings which can be handed down and "taught"
by way of transmission. In focusing on such extreme cases I do not
want to deny the cases of institutions in which the movement of
research leads to a continuing development of new insights, beginning
with the Platonic Academy and Aristotle's Lyceum as places of ongoing
investigation as it is ideally still the case in their successors, the modern
universities. As a still tentative description, rather than a definition of a
philosophical movement, I would then suggest: an association of
nonorganized philosophic seekers moving from certain initial insights
to the exploration of new territories, guided by some pioneers, princi-
ples, or texts.
Such a preliminary description would also allow for a hypothesis
about the typical development of philosophic movements based on
some of the evidence previously collected: A movement in its openness
is usually preceded by a stage of relatively closed face-to-face circles in a
definite location. As it spreads during the movement phase it may lead

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to the formation of more or less rigid schools. But it may also split up or
"peter out" when the movement has lost its momentum.

VI. The Case For and Against Movements in Philosophy


Thus far what I have been offering may appear to be nothing but
descriptive sociology. But I do not consider this a sufficient achievement
for a philosophical study which should have something to say not only
about mere facts but also about their significance and legitimacy.
Specifically, is there any point in aiding and abetting the rise, develop-
ment, and perpetuation of movements rather than of fully-developed
philosophies in schools? Is not the whole phenomenon of philosophical
movements a sign of philosophical impotence, of evasion from clear-cut
decisions?
In conclusion I would like to consider briefly the case pro and con,
for movements in philosophy.
I. In the absence of fully-developed compelling philosophies
adequate to the challenges of the day, movements can at least
prepare the ground for the growth and foundation of new
philosophies. Even if and when such philosophies should still
or again be within our grasp, movements can aid in support-
ing them and act as testing grounds for their effectiveness. On
the other hand, this plea leaves movements only as subsidiary,
second-best solutions.
z. Movements in philosophy can be the frame for some group-
philosophizing and promoting the many-sided consideration
of issues in contrast to the -monolog-thinking of solitary phi-
losophers. (The value of this type of so-philosophizing has
just been (re-)discovered by the blinded Sartre, who could no
longer philosophize by writing but only in dialogue with his
friend and collaborator Benny Levy.) On the other hand, such
group-philosophizing can easily lend itself to gregarious irre-
sponsibility and other-directedness.
3. A philosophical movement can inspire the sense of philoso-
phy "in the making," thus avoiding the rigidity of a philo-
sophic system, without being anti-systematic, but rather pre-
systematic. On the other hand, such "moving" thinking can
lead to mere groping, fuzziness, and diffusiveness.
4. A philosophic movement is not just a mere mental happening
or a passive motion. Rather it is self-initiated and self-cont-
rolled. It thus keeps philosophy not only in flux but actively

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alive by mutual interaction, stimulation, and criticism. On the
other hand, such thinking implies the risk of capriciousness
and erratic digressions.
5. Philosophical movements are essentially open toward future
growth. On the other hand, such openness may prevent the
consistent development of the inner directions of the move-
ment itself.
Hence the case for movements versus unmoving structures in philos-
ophy is by no means clear. It depends on the historical circumstances
whether the merits of a movement will outweigh its demerits.
In trying to make sense of the use of the term "movement" in philos-
ophy, in any case a metaphorical sense, I want to make it clear that I am
not pleading for the superiority of movement philosophies over static
system philosophies. There is still a case for the ideal of philosophy as
rigorous science in which all movement would terminate. As far as I
myself am concerned, I am far from sure whether I belong to the phe-
nomenological movement in the strict sense. When I came in contact
with phenomenology in the early twenties, its movement phase was
already on the decline. In fact, I always felt too much of a philosophical
maverick to identify with established philosophies, even congenial ones,
and unwilling to jump on philosophical bandwagons. Nevertheless, I
sympathize with this movement more than with any other, and with its
movement phase more than with any final conclusions of any phenom-
enologist, even Husserl or Pfinder. But this hardly makes me part of the
mainstream rather than a rivulet of a side current. I am a well-wisher of
this movement, but not at the price of giving up my critical distance as a
historical observer and, more important, as a pursuer of independent
thoughts of my own which pursue me. How far they merge with any of
the currents of the Phenomenological Movement is for me a secondary
consideration.
Movements in philosophy are not yet full-fledged philosophies. But
they are on the way to them. All that Heidegger claimed to have left
behind in the end were Wege nicht-Werke (ways, not works). To that
extent they are certainly preferable to the nonphilosophies of a merely
computerized science."2

The present essay, drafted first as the keynote address for the meeting of the South-
western Philosophical Society at North Texas State University in i980, owes its final
formulation mostly to the subsequent interest, research contributions, and suggestions
of Professor Karl Schuhmann, University of Utrecht. My colleague Albert William Levi
gave me additional critical stimuli.

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